Grab an ice cube from the freezer and place it on a table. Watch closely enough and you will see, well, not much at all. The ice cube is absorbing heat, but it is still an ice cube. Before it melts, it will draw heat from the environment to change from solid to liquid. Only then will it begin to slip and slide in a puddle of its own making.

And so to A World Without Ice by Henry Pollack, emeritus professor of geophysics at the University of Michigan and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shared the 2007 Nobel peace prize with Al Gore.

The book gets off to a slowish start. You may have to work a little before being rewarded. But given time, Pollack's narrative warms up and really takes off. The story he has to tell is fascinating, frightening and important.

Despite the title, this is not a book about the world without ice. Much is given over to the impact of ice in Earth's long history, as a dominant force that shaped our planet's landscape, steered migrations and moulded cultures. Pollack takes us through Antarctic and Arctic explorations, the natural cycles that bring us ice ages and more temperate periods, and the rise of climate science which, among other feats, can recreate a history of the temperature on Earth from kilometres of ice core drilled from the polar caps.

Pollack's intellectual clout and clarity of phrase are invaluable in describing the scientific evidence for global warming, the ways in which it will affect the world, and the all-too-probable consequences. Pollack is not one to brush awkward issues under the carpet. There is serious discussion about uncertainties in climate science, and in particular, the computer models used to forecast future warming. For its forensic analysis and robust destruction of climate sceptic arguments alone, A World Without Ice is worth keeping on a nearby shelf.

Some readers may find Pollack's US-centric approach occasionally grating. He tells of intense irrigation in southwestern Kansas, IPCC reports as big as several New York City phone directories and schoolday stories from Omaha. But this is forgiveable. The US is uniquely placed to act on climate change but faces a substantial obstacle in the shape of the archaic, influential, oil-funded anti-climate change lobby.

Thoughtful throughout, Pollack occasionally delivers paragraphs that stay with you long after closing the book. On the subject of the book itself, he writes: "Nature's best thermometer, perhaps its most sensitive and unambiguous indicator of climate change, is ice. When ice gets sufficiently warm, it melts. Ice asks no questions, presents no arguments, reads no newspapers, listens to no debates. It is not burdened by ideology and carries no polictiucial baggage as it crosses the threshold from solid to liquid. It just melts."

A World Without Ice is a call to arms. Debates about which mitigation strategies might give us the best chances of reducing our emissions miss the point, Pollack says. If we want to avoid the worst that climate change may bring, we need "every horse in the stable pulling together, and as hard and as fast as possible".

Pollack's argument is engaging, compelling and deeply distressing, no matter the climate change fatigue that inevitably sets in as a consequence of endless media coverage of global warming. The author's final warning comes from Lao Tzu, a 6th century Chinese philosopher: "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."